Weather Forecast

Change must come in each of us

By Jan Schultz, The Imperial Republican News Editor

Since writing here two weeks ago just days after the Boston Marathon bombings, much has happened. One of the suspects is dead and another is battling injuries in a closely-guarded hospital. As you probably have done, too, I’ve read and watched on TV much about events leading up to and since the April 15 attacks. Yet, there are still so many questions. More investigation is centered on the two young men’s family and others who may have contributed, at least in ideology, to this horrible, cowardly act. I continue to believe these actions will not daunt this country, and others are predicting that next year’s Boston Marathon will be bigger than ever. Terrorism directed at this country often acts as a magnet in pulling our people together again. Yet, we have to ask why this happened, and many of us fairly ask how a good God can allow these things to occur. When such questions arise, I often have to rely on others I respect to see what they have to say, because I certainly don’t have an answer. One of those is Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, who formerly served the Catholic Diocese of Denver, and is now Archbishop of Philadelphia. He does not agree that people should read into this “carnage of innocent spectators” that God is serving judgment on the United States. Yet, he writes that something is wrong with our way of life, “something that acts like a magnet to the worst impulses of the human heart.” He believes that America has lost some of the greatness in its way of life. “We’re no longer the nation of our founders,” yet there is hope. And it starts in each of us, he says. “The character of our way of life depends on the character of my way of life,” he writes. As he points out, we need to continue to pray for the dead and wounded in Boston and their families, but we also need to change ourselves. That may seem like a small thing, until we try it, he adds. Yet, just look at history and see how the acts of individuals—people like Abraham Lincoln, Oskar Schindler and Mother Teresa—can have such a positive effect in this world.